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    AMD Enduro (switchable graphics) solutions for certain games (e.g. CoD4, Black Ops)

    Discussion in 'Sager and Clevo' started by MacHater, Jul 31, 2012.

  1. MacHater

    MacHater Notebook Evangelist

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    I have an HP Envy 17 Ivy Bridge w/ Radeon HD 7850M. It's not a Sager / Clevo machine, but it also has AMD Enduro implemented (in the same way, with the same problems).

    Since neither AMD nor the OEMs (HP, Sager, Clevo) have provided any working solutions yet for any games, I decided to be adventurous and try things out myself.

    As you all know, AMD Enduro gives severe performance penalties on our cards and this makes our cards perform at worst at half the performance we paid for.

    Using MSI Afterburner to monitor GPU Usage as well as overclock the GPU. I'm currently using the 8.982 Catalyst drivers.

    So, at least for Call of Duty 4, Call of Duty Black Ops, and World at War, I found a solution for this performance problem: Enable Multi-GPU mode "dual video cards" in Video Options (or set the r_multiGPU dvar to 1).

    Before setting Multi-GPU to 1: ~75% usage
    After setting Multi-GPU to 1: ~95% usage (for CoD4) and ~99% usage (for CoD Black Ops)

    And yes, changing this made frame rates increase significantly, as well as GPU usage.

    Unfortunately, Battlefield 3 does not have any similar console commands so there isn't a solution for BF3 as far as I know.

    r_multiGPU dvar was removed internally from Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 and Modern Warfare 3, so this tweak does not apply to those games.

    The real solution will need to come from AMD. Report the issue to them
     
    MacHater, Jul 31, 2012
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  2. MacHater

    MacHater Notebook Evangelist

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    Can anyone here confirm my findings?
     
    MacHater, Jul 31, 2012
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  3. Dotcom93

    Dotcom93 Notebook Consultant

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    Do you know any other games' with that option? I'm not really a COD fan ^^'
     
    Dotcom93, Jul 31, 2012
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  4. MacHater

    MacHater Notebook Evangelist

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    Unfortunately, no.
     
    MacHater, Jul 31, 2012
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  5. iaTa

    iaTa Do Not Feed

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    Crysis 2 has a similar setting.

    Off to try it now.
     
    iaTa, Jul 31, 2012
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  6. MacHater

    MacHater Notebook Evangelist

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    I have Crysis 2. I don't see any similar settings in the game options menus.

    But I did find this:
    Code: 
    variable: r_MultiGPU 
type: int
current: 0
help: 0=disabled, 1=extra overhead to allow SLI(NVidia) or Crossfire(ATI),
2(default)=automatic detection (currently SLI only, means off for ATI)
should be activated before rendering
    Haven't tried it myself, but I guess it can't hurt to try :p

    (Don't have Crysis 2 installed on my laptop, only on my desktop so I can't test)
     
    MacHater, Jul 31, 2012
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  7. iaTa

    iaTa Do Not Feed

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    Nope still low utilisation.

    Bummer, thanks anyway.
     
    iaTa, Jul 31, 2012
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  8. TrantaLocked

    TrantaLocked Notebook Deity

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    Video options in the game or where?
     
    TrantaLocked, Jul 31, 2012
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  9. MacHater

    MacHater Notebook Evangelist

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    Video options:
    [​IMG]

    Or console command: r_multiGPU 1

    (Only tested in CoD4, Black Ops)
     
    MacHater, Jul 31, 2012
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  10. littlecx

    littlecx Notebook Deity

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    CCC should have this option instead of the games
     
    littlecx, Jul 31, 2012
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  11. spettow

    spettow Notebook Consultant

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    Interesting. If machater´s tweak works with other people, it shows two things:

    1 - Besides 7970m, other cards are facing problem with enduro
    2 - Probably the problems with enduro are at the level of driver / software.
     
    spettow, Jul 31, 2012
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  12. Montage

    Montage Notebook Evangelist

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    Even though this might not solve the problem in other games, the driver developers could look into what changes when the multiGputhingy is activated, and reproduce the same effects in other games as well?
     
    Montage, Jul 31, 2012
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  13. littlecx

    littlecx Notebook Deity

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    no such option in black op
     

    Attached Files:

    littlecx, Aug 1, 2012
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  14. MacHater

    MacHater Notebook Evangelist

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    In black ops, you must open the dev console with the "~" key, and type:
    /r_multigpu 1

    Hit enter.
     
    MacHater, Aug 1, 2012
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  15. MacHater

    MacHater Notebook Evangelist

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    Bump This is still relevant.
     
    MacHater, Aug 3, 2012
    #15